Are you a small business owner who is considering becoming more active on social media networks in order drive traffic to your website, increase online visibility, and draw in more customers? Great idea!
In fact, as daunting as social media marketing can seem, statistics show that customers spend at least 30 minutes per day on various social media channels. Having a social media presence on multiple channels can greatly improve your brand awareness and help you grow your business.
But, much like target practice in the dark, things can go awry (or at the very least be ineffective) without a strategic and organized plan.
Steps for Creating a Social Media Editorial Calendar
1. Research to Learn What Content Your Audience Responds To
Prior to firing up your social media marketing machine, it's important to determine exactly the types of posts that resonate with your intended audience. How can you do this? One way is to look at the analytics from content that you have already posted on social media. What posts got the most traffic or user engagement?
Another easy way is to take a peek at your competitors' social media channels to see what they are posting and what their most popular posts are. Do their blog posts get a lot of attention? Maybe it is a coupon or weekly special. Perhaps their memes are getting a ton of likes or shares. Popular content varies greatly by industry and business type, so take the time to study what works and what doesn't for others. It will save you time down the road and give you some great ideas with which to work.
2. Determine How Often You Will Post
According to Constant Contact, there are different best practice guidelines for each social media channel. They are:
Facebook: 3-10 posts per week (low volume/high value)
Twitter: 5 posts minimum per day (high volume/low value)
LinkedIn: 2-5 posts per week (high value/low volume)
Google+: 3-10 posts per week (high value/low volume; focus on keywords)
Pinterest: 5-10 posts per day (high volume; focus on quality images and keywords)
That said, if you are a small business owner, you may not be able to crank out that much content. Focus on consistent, quality posts even if you don't post as frequently as you would like.
3. Creating or Finding Great Content to Post on Social Media
Now that you know what types of posts work best and how often to post, it's time to get busy creating posts and finding great content to share. Sprout Social recommends some great tools for curating content relevant to your audience, including:
Buzzsumo - Here you can type in a keyword string or website domain and Buzzsumo will show you the most socially shared content based on what you have provided.
Feedly - This tool aggregates all of the topics you are interested in. Simply set up a free account and find great relevant content to share. In addition, you can also plug Feedly into certain social media platforms to simplify your scheduling process.
Scoop.it - This is a nice tool where you can follow topics related to your brand, giving you tons of content to share, all for free.
4. Create Your Social Media Calendar
Your social media calendar doesn't have to be fancy; in fact, you can do it in Excel or use something like Google Calendar to plot out your posts, make edits, and share your calendar with others. Here are some other suggestions on ways to set up your social media calendar from HubSpot.
When you start to get the hang of plotting out a monthly calendar and want to automate your posts and streamline your processes, there are some amazing tools from Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and others to help you out.
Do you need help creating content for your social media campaigns? OpenVine's social media experts can help you set up the social media accounts that work best for your niche, create an editorial calendar, and run your social media accounts based on your business goals. Contact us online to GET A FREE QUOTE OR MORE INFORMATION.